A Canadian and his Taiwanese wife have built their dream house out of pulped newspapers. John Lamorie, an English teacher living in Taiwan, collected 1,300kg of old newspapers and turned them into building materials with a pulping machine he invented. It took him and his wife almost a year to build, but now they have an environmentally friendly house in Pingtung County.<
Lamorie was born in Canada, but grew up in New Zealand before coming to Taiwan 11 years ago, where he met his wife Wu Lian-chun (吳連春).
“We are a real life Beauty and the Beast,” Lamorie said.
PHOTO: HOU CHIEN-CHUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
Lamorie said he loves a challenge, and that when he is not teaching English, he fills his time with carpentry, building and glass painting. He has already made five wooden houses abroad and five years ago purchased a plot of land in Pingtung County.
Most of the buildings on their land are wooden structures set in lush, green surroundings with a bridge over a stream and a small pond for geese and ducks. The main house, which they just completed, is built from bricks made of old newspapers.
Lamorie uses as much recycled materials as possible. He got his hands on old window frames when his mother-in-law renovated her house and he acquired old Japanese cypress wood from the school where he works.
It all started when a friend of his from the US was visiting and happened to mention the idea of a paper house, Lamorie said.
He said he got interested in the idea and searched online for information about how he could make one himself. He devised his own paper pulping machine using old rubber tires and plastic buckets and asked his students to save their old newspapers for him, Lamorie said.
With the pulper up and running, the next step was to make molds for the bricks. He left the bricks out to dry in the sun, and they went down from 5kg when wet to 1kg when dry. The couple built the house in their spare time and now have a paper house of about 75m².
They placed colored glass in strategic positions so light could come into the house, creating a mosaic effect in the rooms.
Wu said the couple had to import silicon paint to make sure the bricks were waterproof. They are also soundproof and provide good insulation. Wu said they passed an important test in August last year when the house held up during Typhoon Morakot. Lamorie is now putting the spare bricks to use by making a pavilion.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS